Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, or Chinese skullcap, has been widely used as a medicinal plant in China for thousands of years, where the preparation from its roots is called Huang-Qin. It has been applied in the treatment of diarrhea, dysentery, hypertension, hemorrhaging, insomnia, inflammation and respiratory infections. Flavones such as baicalin, wogonoside and their aglycones baicalein wogonin are the major bioactive compounds extracted from the root of S. baicalensis. These flavones have been reported to have various pharmacological functions, including anti-cancer, hepatoprotection, antibacterial and antiviral, antioxidant, anticonvulsant and neuroprotective effects...

The mechanical failure of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) components may cause cracks with consequences such as gas leakage, structure instability and reduction of cell lifetime. A comprehensive 3D model of the thermal stresses of an anode-supported planar SOFC is presented in this work. The main objective of this paper is to get an interconnect optimized design by evaluating the thermal stresses of an anode-supported SOFC for different designs, which would be a new criterion for interconnect design. The model incorporates the momentum, mass, heat, ion and electron transport, as well as steady-state mechanics...

Monolayer FeSe films grown on SrTiO3 (STO) substrate show superconducting gap-opening temperatures ([Formula: see text]) which are almost an order of magnitude higher than those of the bulk FeSe and are highest among all known Fe-based superconductors. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy observed "replica bands" suggesting the importance of the interaction between FeSe electrons and STO phonons. These facts rejuvenated the quest for [Formula: see text] enhancement mechanisms in iron-based, especially iron-chalcogenide, superconductors...

Polymyxin acts as an ultimate line of refuge against the severe infections by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens. This conventional idea is challenged dramatically by the recent discovery of mobile colistin resistance gene (mcr-1) is prevalent in food animals and human beings worldwide. More importantly, the mcr-1 gene was found to be co-localized with other antibiotic resistance genes, raising the possibility that super-bugs with pan-drug resistance are emerging. However, little is reported on the genomes of the mcr-1-positive bacterial host reservoirs...

We elucidate a recently emergent framework in unifying the two families of high temperature (high [Formula: see text]) superconductors, cuprates and iron-based superconductors. The unification suggests that the latter is simply the counterpart of the former to realize robust extended s-wave pairing symmetries in a square lattice. The unification identifies that the key ingredients (gene) of high [Formula: see text] superconductors is a quasi two dimensional electronic environment in which the d-orbitals of cations that participate in strong in-plane couplings to the p-orbitals of anions are isolated near Fermi energy...

Based on observational analyses and on-site ground and aerial damage surveys, this work aims to reveal the weather phenomena-especially the wind situation-when Oriental Star capsized in the Yangtze River on June 1, 2015. Results demonstrate that the cruise ship capsized when it encountered strong winds at speeds of at least 31 m s(-1) near the apex of a bow echo embedded in a squall line. As suggested by the fallen trees within a 2-km radius around the wreck location, such strong winds were likely caused by microburst straight-line wind and/or embedded small vortices, rather than tornadoes...

Plants synthesize and accumulate large amount of specialized (or secondary) metabolites also known as natural products, which provide a rich source for modern pharmacy. In China, plants have been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years. Recent development of molecular biology, genomics and functional genomics as well as high-throughput analytical chemical technologies has greatly promoted the research on medicinal plants. In this article, we review recent advances in the elucidation of biosynthesis of specialized metabolites in medicinal plants, including phenylpropanoids, terpenoids and alkaloids...

Initiation and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is intimately associated with a chronically diseased liver tissue. This diseased liver tissue background is a drastically different microenvironment from the healthy liver, especially with regard to immune cell prevalence and presence of mediators of immune function. To better understand the consequences of liver disease on tumor growth and the interplay with its microenvironment, we utilized two standard methods of fibrosis induction and orthotopic implantation of tumors into the inflamed and fibrotic liver to mimic the liver condition in human HCC patients...

Current neuromodulation techniques such as optogenetics and deep-brain stimulation are transforming basic and translational neuroscience. These two neuromodulation approaches are, however, invasive since surgical implantation of an optical fiber or wire electrode is required. Here, we have invented a non-invasive magnetogenetics that combines the genetic targeting of a magnetoreceptor with remote magnetic stimulation. The non-invasive activation of neurons was achieved by neuronal expression of an exogenous magnetoreceptor, an iron-sulfur cluster assembly protein 1 (Isca1)...

Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genomic sequences of DNA capable of autonomous and non-autonomous duplication. TEs have been highly successful, and nearly half of the human genome now consists of various families of TEs. Originally thought to be non-functional, these elements have been co-opted by animal genomes to perform a variety of physiological functions ranging from TE-derived proteins acting directly in normal biological functions, to innovations in transcription factor logic and influence on epigenetic control of gene expression...

Our perception of biodiversity in the geological past is incomplete and biased because most organisms did not have mineralized skeletons and therefore had little chance of fossilization. This especially refers to shallow-water marine environments, rarely represented by localities with exceptional preservation of fossil material (known as taphonomic windows or Konservat-Lagerstätten). Such extraordinary "windows" may markedly broaden our knowledge of biodiversity of the past. Here, we show a review of the invertebrate fossils from recently discovered locality in the Lower Ordovician Fenxiang Formation of Hubei Province in southern China revealing exceptional preservation of soft tissues...

Richardson et al. (Sci Bull, 2015. doi:10.1007/s11434-015-0806-z) suggest that the irreducibly simple climate model described in Monckton of Brenchley et al. (Sci Bull 60:122-135, 2015. doi:10.1007/s11434-014-0699-2) was not validated against observations, relying instead on synthetic test data based on underestimated global warming, illogical parameter choice and near-instantaneous response at odds with ocean warming and other observations. However, the simple model, informed by its authors' choice of parameters, usually hindcasts observed temperature change more closely than the general-circulation models, and finds high climate sensitivity implausible...